Administrative Law

In Trump v. Slaughter, the U.S. Supreme Court made a profound change to the administrative state. The Court ruled that "for cause" removal protections for members of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are an unconstitutional infringement on the President's executive powers. Gone is Humphrey's Executor v. United States, the seminal case that upheld limits on the President's authority to remove FTC Commissioners, and nine decades of independent agency leadership with a degree of insulation from Presidential control. The implication of Slaughter for other independent agencies, including the...

One thing in the OCC's GENIUS Act proposed rule that I can wholeheartedly endorse: "The OCC proposes to use the term 'Federal Reserve' in place of 'Board' for greater clarity because the proposed rule refers separately to boards of directors in various sections." This practice should be adopted across the bank regulatory ecosystem. The prevailing practice of using "the Board" on second reference to the Federal Reserve decreases the accessibility of regulatory documents and increases cognitive load for anyone who has to read them -- even us experts.

In a pending case brought by the union representing CFPB employees, the Administration has informed the court that CFPB will run out of funding early next year and that the Administration will not seek additional funding for the agency. This memorandum examines the implications for the CFPB’s key functions – rulewriting, supervision, enforcement, and publication of market data – should the agency cease operations in early 2026. The Dodd-Frank Act provides the CFPB with exclusive authority to prescribe rules implementing federal consumer financial laws. These laws include ECOA, EFTA, FDCPA,...

Nobody likes Vullo v. OCC, New York's challenge to the nondepository national fintech charter half a decade ago. For most people in the industry, the case stands for the idea that the OCC can’t charter national banks that don’t take deposits, unless the bank is restricted to trust company activities. The OCC dislikes this for a few reasons, but mostly because it isn’t true. The lower court’s decision against the OCC was reversed on procedural grounds, and the case went away after the applicant at issue applied for deposit insurance. Had the lower court’s substantive reasoning been put to the...

No one knows exactly when the federal application window for GENIUS Act stablecoin issuers will officially open. But it's hard to see it happening much earlier than the statutory deadline in mid-July 2026. The Act mandates that the four primary federal payment stablecoin regulators issue regulations to carry out the licensing provisions and start accepting applications "before" July 18, 2026. It doesn't say how long before the deadline applications must be accepted, but the timeline is likely to be tight. One reason is the interagency process. Under the Act, federal regulators must...

Crowdsourcing + AI is a viable strategy for rulemaking in an era of smaller agency staffs. This seems to be emerging thinking in the Administration. The first sign was the deregulation suggestion form used with the spring's omnibus Deregulation RFI. The latest is last week's advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) in the personal financial data (1033) reconsideration. In the 1033 litigation, the CFPB promised the court an "expedited" reconsideration rulemaking. But how is using an ANPRM consistent with an expedited rulemaking? The optional ANPRM phase is usually skipped even in...

Yesterday's notice rescinding the CFPB rulemaking procedural rule references a rarely acknowledged problem in regulatory change monitoring: the distinction between the agency announcement of a rulemaking action and its publication in the Federal Register. Banking agencies typically announce rulemaking actions on their websites when they are transmitted to the Federal Register, but official publication in the Federal Register can take several weeks. There are important reasons to capture and track both events: 1️⃣ The agency announcement is important because stakeholders in regulated...

On Friday, May 30th, the CFPB filed a motion for summary judgment in Forcht Bank v. CFPB asking the court to vacate the entire rule implementing Section 1033 (Rule). The motion argues that the Rule is unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) as it exceeds the agency’s statutory authority and is arbitrary and capricious. The CFPB states that the change in position is the result of the agency’s review of existing rules under Executive Order 14219 to ensure they are based on the best reading of the underlying statute and do not impose undue burdens on small businesses and impede...

On May 12, 2025, the CFPB published the withdrawal of several guidance documents, interpretive rules, policy statements, and advisory opinions dating back to 2011, when the CFPB began operations. Effective immediately, the CFPB is withdrawing 67 issuances in total: 8 policy statements, 7 interpretive rules, 13 advisory opinions, and 39 other guidance documents (including circulars and bulletins). Over two-thirds of these guidance materials were issued during President Biden’s term. The attached chart details each issuance that the CFPB is withdrawing. The CFPB gave three reasons for...

On April 9, 2025, President Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum “Directing the Repeal of Unlawful Regulations” and an accompanying “Fact Sheet” (the Presidential Memorandum and the Fact Sheet shall hereinafter be referred to as the “Memorandum”) directing the heads of federal agencies to expeditiously repeal “facially unlawful regulations.” The Memorandum requires the agencies to prioritize the repeal of regulations that conflict with ten Supreme Court decisions listed in the Memorandum, and requires the agencies to act without following the Administrative Procedure Act’s (APA) notice and...

There is now a form on Regulations.gov for submitting deregulation ideas in response to last week's OMB RFI. A few observations: The form seems designed to support automated generation of draft Federal Register proposed and final rules through AI-augmented document assembly. The structure of the form roughly follows the structure of a proposed or final rule. It also includes instructions that clearly come from guidance to writers of Federal Register rules. (They forgot to take out this line: "If this is a final rule, you should respond to any relevant and timely comments.") In addition to...

TLDR: "Are there any regulations you want to repeal?" I guess the White House is unhappy with the volume of regulation repeal ideas coming out of the regulatory review under EO 14219: they're about to ask the public for help. I doubt the Federal Register has ever seen an RFI as short as this one, filed on public inspection and scheduled to be in tomorrow's Federal Register.

Major developments re the Deregulation EO 14219, including a plan to bypass notice-and-comment on some regs. A new EO signed yesterday orders agency heads to bypass notice-and-comment if a rule they want to repeal is "in conflict with" one of 10 listed Supreme Court decisions (including Loper Bright and Jarkesy). Agency heads are to prioritize this immediately after the scheduled end of the regulatory review on April 20, invoking the "good cause" exception under the APA. The original EO 14219 ordered a comprehensive review of regulation and guidance under seven factors, four of which...

It seems like the broad regulatory review ordered by EO 14219 was drowned out by last month’s other noise. And, at most agencies, staffing upheaval will make it hard to take rapid deregulatory action. But for the prudential banking regulators, the situation might be different. ➡️ Broad Regulatory Review The EO calls for a government-wide review of regulations AND guidance for modification or rescission under seven legal or policy grounds. Four of the seven implicate conservative legal theories on federalism, delegation, and statutory interpretation. The other three implicate the...

The Justice Department has informed Congress that it views statutory limitations on the President’s power to remove members of multimember agencies to be unconstitutional. In that communication, the Department specifically cited the “for cause” removal provisions applicable to members of the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. This position, if accepted by the Supreme Court, would have a significant impact on the independence of other multimember agencies, including the Federal Reserve Board (Fed), the Federal Deposit...

On February 19, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order directing a broad-based effort to scale back administrative regulations and enforcement across the Federal Government (the “Deregulation Order”). The Deregulation Order calls for a government-wide review of regulations for modification or rescission under seven enumerated legal or policy grounds. It also orders agencies to de-prioritize enforcement inconsistent with Administration policy and legal views, including termination of ongoing proceedings. While the Deregulation Order applies to almost all domestic non-security...

On February 18, 2025, President Trump issued a new Executive Order entitled “Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies” (the “Agency Accountability E.O.”). The Agency Accountability E.O. amends E.O. 12866 issued by President Clinton in 1993 (“E.O. 12866”) and adds requirements for independent regulatory agencies that go well beyond the scope of E.O. 12866. As described below, the Agency Accountability E.O. provides for an unprecedented degree of executive control over independent agencies, not only in connection with rulemaking, but also in connection with policy and budgetary matters. As a...

This past week, President Trump issued an executive order aimed at reducing Federal regulations (“Executive Order”). The Executive Order directs Federal agencies to identify at least 10 existing regulations to be repealed for every new regulation that is proposed by the agency (the “10-for-1 Directive”). This 10-for-1 Directive is similar to an executive order issued in the first Trump administration that required the repeal of 2 existing regulations for each newly issued regulation (the “2-for-1 Directive”). In the first Trump administration, OMB determined that the 2-for-1 Directive did not...

In Corner Post v. Board of Governors, FRS, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that a claim under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) does not accrue for purposes of the applicable statute of limitations until the plaintiff is injured by final agency action. Corner Post is a North Dakota truck stop and convenience store that opened in 2018. Like most merchants, it accepts debit cards as a form of payment and therefore pays an interchange fee to the bank that issued the card. The allowable amount of the interchange fee is set by the Federal Reserve Board (“Board”) pursuant to its authority...

On June 28, 2024, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, holding that the Chevron Doctrine was inconsistent with the Administrative Procedure Act. For financial services firms, the impact of the decision will vary from agency to agency. National banks, for example, have benefited from the application of the Chevron Doctrine to actions by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Going forward, however, actions by regulatory agencies must more closely be linked to statutory language, and agency justifications for regulations and other actions will be...

We provide comprehensive legal and regulatory support for government relations teams, trade associations, and policy consultants engaged in federal financial services policy advocacy. Our public policy practice covers the full range of advocacy support services, including congressional testimony, legislative drafting, comment letters, regulatory monitoring, FOIA requests, white papers, and strategic engagement with policymakers. We help clients understand regulatory developments, develop informed policy positions, and advocate effectively before Congress and federal agencies. Services...

We organize, manage, and support industry coalitions that focus on regulatory, compliance, and policy issues affecting financial services. We provide comprehensive coalition support including administrative services, member engagement, legal and policy analysis, and executive leadership. Our firm's attorneys serve as executive directors and spokespersons, facilitate meetings, coordinate advocacy efforts, and represent coalitions before policymakers and the media. Services provided by the Industry Coalitions practice include: Administrative Support: We supply administrative support for...

We support in-house government relations and public affairs teams with substantive legal analysis on financial regulatory and legislative matters. Our work includes analyzing proposed rules and legislation, drafting comment letters and position papers, and providing strategic guidance for engagement with federal regulators and Congress. Services we provide to government relations teams include: Agency Challenges: We provide technical legal advice and strategic counsel to clients who are contemplating or pursuing challenges to agency actions. Bill and Rule Analysis: We provide analysis of...

Financial services trade associations have been a core focus of our practice for over half a century. The firm has served as outside counsel to over a dozen leading industry trade associations, as well as numerous issue-focused coalitions. Several of the firm's senior lawyers worked in-house at trade associations prior to joining the firm. We provide trade associations with legal counsel on federal banking, consumer finance, and housing policy matters. Our work includes drafting and editing comment letters to regulators such as the OCC, Federal Reserve, CFPB, FDIC, Treasury, FHFA, and HUD, as...

We partner with policy consulting firms to deliver legal analysis on financial services regulatory and legislative matters. Our work includes written legal analysis on legislation and regulation, preparing regulatory comment letters, drafting legislative amendments, and participating in client calls and meetings on policy issues. Services we provide to public policy consulting firms include: Bill and Rule Analysis: We provide analysis of legislative proposals and regulatory rulemakings, as well as summaries and analysis of comments submitted by other stakeholders. Congressional Testimony: We...

Jim Sivon specializes in financial services law. He primarily works with financial institutions, fintechs, financial trade associations and consulting firms. Jim provides clients with strategic legal advice on charter options, including commercial bank charters, industrial loan company (ILC) charters, national trust bank charters, narrow state charters, money transmission licenses and options for foreign banks; prepares and shepherds regulatory applications related to corporate transactions and product approvals, including charter applications, Change in Bank Control filings, Bank Holding...

BJ Sanford advises payments and fintech companies, U.S. and foreign banks, trade associations, investors, and policy and consulting firms. His practice centers on payments regulation, public policy, and the regulation of bank activities and structure. He also advises clients on regulatory capital, bank investments and control, affiliate transactions, the U.S. operations of foreign banks, and regulatory examinations. Payments regulation. BJ advises payments firms and banks on payment regulation, product development, and compliance with rules including Regulation E, Regulation Z, Regulation II...

Nancy Worth specializes in matters involving the federal financial regulatory agencies, with a particular focus on federal consumer law and fair lending. She advises on supervision and compliance matters relating to mortgages, credit cards, and other lending products, and on examination guidance, applications, reports of examination, enforcement actions, and consumer complaints. Her practice extends to commenting on agency review of legislation and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regulations. Nancy previously served as Special Counsel for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency...

Mitch Plave specializes in financial services regulation and administrative law. Mitch previously served as Special Counsel for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for over 27 years. At the OCC, he led the administrative law practice and played a key role in implementing significant cases and executive orders relating to rulemaking and the issuance of agency guidance. In connection with his leadership on administrative law and procedure, he represented the OCC at the Administrative Conference of the United States. Mitch was also the lead counsel on matters relating to the...